"Working Mother" releases its 2008 Top 100 companies list

It's that time of year again. Working Mother magazine has named the Top 100 U.S. companies for moms with office jobs.

Who's on the list? Many of the usual megacorp suspects: Allstate, Bank of America, Microsoft, and Verizon, to name a few. In fact, the company on the list with the smallest number of employees has 711 U.S. workers.

While the prospect of making such high-profile media lists might inspire big companies to be more family and balance friendly, you of course have to take such lists with a grain of salt. These aren't the only "best companies" for working parents and people who want a life outside work; these are just the big companies with big PR departments that Working Mother chose to highlight.

And if history's any indicator, it's not likely that the friendly 10-, 25-, or 75-person retail, finance, or marketing firm down the street from you will make this list, no matter how casual their dress code or how flexible their hours. Working Mother simply isn't looking in their direction, not yet anyway.

So in the meantime, how do you find out if a company you're considering cozying up to is parent friendly, besides checking out their website, Googling them, and reading what your local business media thinks of them?

• See if anyone's dishing about them on Glassdoor.com.
• Ask everyone you know if they anyone who works at the company in question who'd be willing to give you the inside scoop.
• When you go in for an interview, ask your interviewer if you can speak with a couple of employees in the department you'd be joining to get a feel for the culture.
• Ask the hiring manager what the company's usual business hours are. Managers who don't want to hire someone unwilling to work 10- to 12-hour days will often say so.
• Snoop a little: What are workers wearing on a Friday? Do they have pictures of their kids on their desks? How late into the evening is the parking lot still full?

How about you? Any other tricks for finding out what type of a firm you're getting into bed with before you do?

Freelance writer Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide." E-mail her at ninetothrive@nwjobs.com.